WTP Ramp down for Helios

Early Milestones

Just to remind everyone, there is a "ramp down" for every milestone. Typically the
last week of a Milestone is for testing, and fixing only regressions and P1 or blocking defects. For
milestones, during that final week, the Project lead (or delegate) is enough to review and approve a bug for inclusion in that milestone. Such "final week" bugs, should be formally marked for review and approved before releasing or requesting a respin.

M5: The EclipseCon Milestone

We plan to ensure good enough quality that M5 can be used by EclipseCon presenters for presentations, demos, and tutorials.

M6: Feature Complete, API Freeze, UI Freeze

For M6, we plan to be functionally and API complete and the remaining Milestone and Release Candidates
are for (only) fixing bugs, or fixing release required items (such as version numbers, licensing, etc.).

From M6 to M7, we expect each component lead (or delegate) to review and verify their teams' bugs (i.e.
no PMC review ... though we will be watching :) ).

We expect committers to concentrate on performance and other "internal" improvements, after M6, leading
up to M7. In addition, it's a good time to improve documentation (for end-users and adopters).

If there are exceptions to these conditions, then they will require PMC review. In that event, the
Project Lead must open a bugzilla, detailing the feature to be added after M6 and mark for PMC review.
And that must be done before M6 is declared. Exceptions (with bug numbers) will also be listed at the
end of this document, to help facilitate communication.

Place [NLS] or [API] or [Feature] in the heading of the bug depending on which type it is

Update this page to append the bug at the bottom of the page, so adopters have a central place to find exceptions they may have to react to: re-translate, generate new screen captures, modify their own documentation, or adjust testing procedures.

M7: PMC Review starts after M7

After the M7, the process of building and testing Release Candidates begins (sometimes called "the end
game"). At first, after M7 but before RC1, in addition to the normal component team review, at least 1
PMC member must also review and vote +1 after reviewing the bug for appropriateness (weighing benefits
and risks).

Release Candidates

We expect Release Candidates to truly be candidates for release (i.e. well performing, high quality,
product ready code). After the first RC is produced, other RCs will be produced, as needed, every week.

After M7 is produced, the time for general functional improvements is long past. The following describes the types of bugs that would be appropriate:

A regression

A P1 or P2 bug, one that is 'blocking' or 'critical', and some cases of 'major' severity.

Documentation and PII files are exceptions to the normal PMC required review, since there is little chance of that breaking anything, though it is still expected to be complete by M6, and remaining work to be only documentation fixes (that is, no refactoring of plugins, build changes, etc, without PMC review and approval).

In addition to a bug meeting the above priority/severity conditions, there should be a simple, safe, well understood fix that is well isolated from effecting other components, that doesn't affect API or adopters, that has been well reviewed and well tested.

As each Release Candidate passes, the criteria for weighing the benefit-to-risk ratio criteria gets higher and higher, and as such requires a larger number of PMC members to review.

RC1

After RC1, same rules as after M7: besides the normal component team review, at least 1 PMC members must also review and vote +1 after reviewing the bug for appropriateness and risk.

RC2

After RC2, besides the normal component team review, at least 2 PMC members must also review and vote +1 after reviewing the bug for appropriateness and risk.

RC3

After RC3, besides the normal component team review, at least 3 PMC members must also review and vote +1 after reviewing the bug for appropriateness and risk.